First demo, MeggySynth

by Darius Kazemi on February 25, 2009

in Uncategorized


First demo, MeggySynth, originally uploaded by dariusk.

This is my first run of a little live performance sound and video device I’m calling MeggySynth. It’s definitely just a proof of concept, I’m hoping to make things more impressive all around. I’ll be using the A/B buttons for pitch shifting, too.

Again, sorry about the disappearing pixels, it’s the aliasing from the refresh rates of the Meggy and my camera. Any suggestions on how I might fix that?

{ 7 comments }

Duncan February 26, 2009 at 4:33 am

Constrain your LED refresh rate to double the frame rate of your camera. How fast does the Meggy refresh? Do you have tighter control of it?

Darius Kazemi February 26, 2009 at 1:19 pm

Yep, I do understand basic Nyquist theory, turns out my electrical engineering degree is good for something :)

The main problem is that I don’t think I have good control over the refresh rate of the LEDs. I’ll double check, though, thanks.

Duncan February 26, 2009 at 4:02 pm

Is the Meggy display wrapped in an API? I don’t know what sort of codebase comes with it. Or even what sort of control the MCU uses to update and control the RGB grid. That may have a lot to do with it.

For instance, do you just have 6 colours plus white, or can you set RGB values? Do you have control of brightness? What frequency does the Meggy MCU and/or main loop run at?

Unfortunately there are a crapload of factors that play into. And now I’m interested. I’m going to have to save up some cash for one of these, aren’t I? Crap.

gus February 26, 2009 at 4:30 pm

Huh. Interesting stuff, first time I took a look at it. You coming down to NYC at any point? EdLab, home of The Media Show, would like to play with you :)

Darius Kazemi February 26, 2009 at 6:50 pm

Duncan, it’s an open platform. You can check out the website, they have the full hardware specs and all the driver software open source. But yeah, it’s RGB (and I think RGB+white). I do have control of what colors I send to each element, but I’m not sure about the changing the refresh rates. I just need to look into it and I have NO TIME until like Monday, sadly.

Darius Kazemi February 26, 2009 at 7:13 pm

Gus: next time I’m in NYC you’ll be the first to know.

solipsistnation March 1, 2009 at 7:07 am

My MeggyJr arrived today. I guess living 40 miles from the place they assemble the kits has its advantages. On the other hand, San Jose. Ick.

Send me your source code so I can rip you off! Yeah!

(Actually, I think I know how I'm going to implement my meggy->waveshield sequencer already. I hope. As usual, I bet the details only resolve upon implementation.)

(Also, whisky

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